WOLFVILLE'S MERMAID THEATRE: THE FIRST FIFTEEN YEARS

DENYSE LYNDE

This article is a historical overview of the first fifteen
years of children's theatre in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, where the Mermaid
Theatre was founded. Developing from a local to a major international
company, the Mermaid has redefined its mandates and policies and undergone
major personnel changes and shifts in repertory that have significant implications
for Canadian drama in both a local and national context.

The Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia originated in the summer of 1971
in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, as the Acadia Child Drama and Puppet Theatre
with the assistance of an Opportunities For Youth Grant.1
This group gave ninety performances in the Annapolis Valley area. In the
following year, it was renamed the Mermaid Theatre Project, receiving funding
from the Local Initiatives Programme. The specific aims of the Mermaid
Theatre were reshaped and adapted over the next fifteen years as what began
as a rural children's theatre company grew and matured to become a 'Cultural
ambassador for Nova Scotia and Canada.'2 Changes in the
sources of funding, performers and artistic staff, as well as in the repertory,
mark the shifting policies and aims of the company over the years.

At its formation, Evelyn Garbary was Advisor, with Tom Miller serving
as Artistic Director and Designer, and Sara Lee Lewis as administrator.
Garbary had studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and
performed at London's Old Vic and Dublin's Abbey before she came to Canada
in 1956. In Canada, she worked with the C.B.C. and served as a director
and adjudicator throughout Nova Scotia before becoming director of drama
at Acadia University. When the company was founded, Tom Miller was Art
Consultant for the Kings County (N.S.) Amalgamated School Board. As a teacher
and consultant, he used his background in painting, an M.F.A. from the
University of Iowa, to explore the design and construction of masks and
puppets. It is this initial exploration which brought him to Garbary's
attention. Lewis, who had worked in Montreal as a theatre publicist and
tour manager, had resettled in the Annapolis area and was interested in
the project. The aims of the company were clearly outlined:

Primarily a touring company, the aim of Mermaid Theatre is
to present live drama to the young people of Nova Scotia's scattered rural
area, using schools, community centres and churches to bring unique artistic
entertainment to the doorsteps of those who might otherwise not enjoy theatre
of professional quality. The members of Mermaid Theatre are ready to work
on a year-round basis, visiting elementary and high schools during the
school season. Workshops on programming, resource material, mask and puppet
construction are being offered to teachers and social workers in conjunction
with Mermaid's visits, so that some of the basic skills in the use of drama
as an educational and therapeutic tool may be imparted.3

Initially, Garbary, Miller and Lewis felt their mandate was two-fold. Mermaid
Theatre was conceived as a professional children's touring company for
rural Nova Scotia and an education and therapeutic resource for the community
in general. The repertory in the inaugural season of the Mermaid Theatre
Company was mixed. original scripts by writers such as Elizabeth Jones,
David Jones and Dorrie Phillips, adaptations of Gogol, Aesop, Chekhov and
religious allegory, participation plays for children by Jocelyn Bishop
and Brian Way and French plays to be used as French language teaching aids
were mounted by the amateur cast, largely drawn from the Acadia
University community. Workshops were conducted in puppetry, movement and
improvisation, and in mask and puppet construction. However, actual work
in puppetry and mask remained peripheral.

In 1973, Garbary moved the company in a new and what would become very
significant direction. With the rediscovery of original MicMac legends
as first collected and translated by Silas Rand, a Baptist Missionary of
the nineteenth century, Nova Scotia folklore became a new source of dramatic
material; as a Halifax Mail Star reviewer commented in 1972:

The first plays drawn from the MicMac legends included 'How Summer Came
to Canada,' 'Mooin the Bear and the Star Hunters,' 'How the Loon became
a Seabird' and 'The Call of the Loon.'5 In June of 1973,
a Mermaid Theatre touring production performed at La Poudrière in
Montreal, marking the company's first major exposure outside of the Maritimes,
while later in this year at home in Nova Scotia the company performed The Merchant
of Venice.

This mixed repertory of classical works and original regional plays
continued for the rest of 1973 and into mid-1974. In July 1973, Evangeline
was announced, a play recounting the expulsion and return of Nova Scotia
Acadians, featuring Acadian dancers and folksongs.6 Here
can be seen the roots of a concern with rural history and native talent
that in the 1980's comes to define the Mermaid. Elizabeth Jones' Viking
Saga followed using giant puppets and shadow puppets to tell the story
of the Norse discovery of Vinland around the year 1000.7
The classics were still a mainstay of the repertory, as the press release
for the January 1974 production of Doctor Faustus indicates:

Although the two year company has won widespread acclaim for
its unusual form of puppetry, Mermaid also concentrates on bringing traditional
drama to spectators who have little opportunity to see professional theatre.8

An important turning point occurred, however, in June of that year. The
Canada Council provided financial support, and immediately the company
began to redefine itself:

Mermaid is, in the first place, a puppet theatre. It can and
does do conventional material. But it most frequently operates on a plane
somewhere between the two ... The company's repertory includes classics
such as Marlowe's Doctor Faustus and Merchant of Venice,
but there is increasing emphasis on plays using indigenous material.
They aim not only to stimulate language development, but to foster an appreciation
of the visual arts, by means of unusual and creative masks, puppets and
costumes.9

Although an interest in the classics is still expressed here, the Mermaid
Theatre concentrated on material from MicMac and local legends for the
next few years. Productions of the MicMac legends during this period were
characterized by Miller's striking puppet designs, ranging in size from
eighteen inches to ten feet and in material from soft and polyurethane
foam to painted papier-mâché.

The support of the Canada Council allowed the company to tour outside
Nova Scotia. Glooscap's People, with a French version, Le Monde
de Glooscap, was performed at the National Arts Centre in December
1974 '10 This script is one of the first of several adapted
or written by Evelyn Garbary who also wrote or adapted and directed The
Journey Nova Scotia Folktales, Glooscap and the Mighty Bulffirog, The Invisible
Hunter, The Adventures of Lox the Demon, The Wakenaki and The Trickster
over the next few years. With the support of the Canada Council and
the Nova Scotia Department of Recreation, the Mermaid also planned a western
tour of Edmonton, Winnipeg, Moose jaw, Regina, Calgary and North Battleford
for the next year. Although the company continued to be drawn from Acadia
University, it did join Equity, and the next year as a professional troupe,
Mermaid toured and received warm reviews that focussed on its now typical
mixed repertory.11 In the same season, Garbary emphasized
the company's direction, a redefinition of earlier press releases:

Although they have performed classics ... the Mermaid's true
purpose lies elsewhere ... [They] found a very important collection of
MicMac legends - a tremendous valuable oral literature.12

In 1976, Mermaid had another national tour. As in 1975, they conducted
workshops on masks and puppetry, reaffirming the commitment to education
made at the formation of the company in 1972. Its focus still remained
two-fold, but the company became increasingly committed to touring the
MicMac legends nationally as well as locally, while continuing its workshop
training, Reviews of the tours of 1975 and 1976 emphasized the high quality
of the acting although the performers were still mostly from the Acadia
University community.

In the 1976 season, Mermaid travelled twice to Montreal and Kingston
and again the company policy was redefined:

Our aim is to leave audiences with some practical skills as
well as an interest in their folklore. When people can produce and stage
plays in their own community, we feel we've really contributed something
worthwhile.13

This statement echoes the 1972 policy: education remained important, but
the company no longer confined itself to rural Nova Scotia. A tenth MicMac
play, The Trickster, written and directed by Garbary, was produced
in the fall of 1975 along with Susanna Moodie, script by Donna E.
Smyth, a Professor of English at Acadia University, directed by Garbary
and Miller. The play was drawn from Susanna Moodie's own journals and Margaret
Atwood's Journals of Susanna Moodie, representing a departure from
the MicMac material. These productions toured New Brunswick, Prince Edward
Island and Nova Scotia. In Susanna Moodie,14 a play suitable for all ages, Smyth gives effective dramatic expression
to the story of this formidable woman pioneer's arrival and first few years
in Canada. Particularly striking is her use of the narrator, a second Susanna,
who is used to bridge and comment on particular events and to express Susanna's
inner thoughts and feelings. A tightened and consolidated version of this
play was performed the next year.15

In 1977, Mermaid travelled to Wales and England on the first of many
international tours. offering plays from their MicMac legend repertory,
they gave twenty-three performances in nine Welsh cities and participated
in the International Theatre Festival. They also had a three-day engagement
at London's Royal Court Theatre. The reviews from this tour were positive,
commenting on the fact that eight members of the cast were from Acadia
University and emphasizing that the Company's 'major appeal is to acquaint
young people in rural areas with theatre experience.'16

During the 1977 Christmas season, Mermaid performed The MicMac Legends,
a two-play production of The Trickster, restaged, and the new
Medoonak the Storm Maker, adapted by Garbary from a script by Elizabeth
Jones. At this time Garbary admitted to a Toronto interviewer that she
saw the company's 'unique style as a reason for survival ... We couldn't
do what we do, we couldn't nurture it, not under the search light you suffer
here [Toronto]. There [Nova Scotia] we are allowed to make mistakes.'17
This style of children's theatre, using puppets and masks to retell legend,
which made the company unique to Nova Scotia, was also unique to Canada.
But Garbary's statement implied that the company no longer sought national
status; she apparently wanted it to remain in Nova Scotia and 'make mistakes'
- which perhaps explains why university students dominated the casts.

In 1978, Mermaid entered a period of crisis which lasted until the early
eighties and resulted in major policy and personnel changes. Only two new
plays were developed in that year, both directed by Garbary and Miller:
TheBrothers from theMicMac material, script by Garbary,
and Giant Anna,18written by Donna E. Smyth.
The Wakenaki from the MicMac legend was restaged. Whereas in 1975
and 1976 Mermaid averaged around one hundred and fifty performances in
Nova Scotia and across the country, in 1978, there were fewer than one
hundred, a trend that continued into the early eighties.

Garbary began to look for new directions for the company; Giant Anna, the second non-MicMac play by Smyth, was one experiment. This play
traces the life of a giantess born in rural Nova Scotia. More of a social
history, it is interpreted in a didactic manner. As a child, despite warm
and loving parents, Anna is lonely and unhappy. Her only friend is a doll.
As a student, she is taunted by her peers and her teachers and at teacher's
college, unable to bear the laughter and jeers of her fellow students,
she soon returns home. The emphasis is clear. The child, later the young
woman, is tormented because she is different: society can be cruel. In
the second act, Anna joins the Barnum circus and begins to assert herself.
Among the dwarfs and thin men, for the first time she feels part of a society
and she gains confidence, fighting against the unjust working conditions.
With new-found confidence, Anna and her fiancé tour England where
she has an audience with the Queen who expresses feelings of loneliness
and isolation. The play directs a very specific lesson to high school as
well as elementary school students; here, the didactic function of the
Mermaid theatre, implicit in many of its plays and in its workshop mandate,
takes a more explicit form.

In 1979, a press release stated a new direction for the company, announcing
that

We continue to present original productions reflecting the
folklore, history and literature of the Atlantic region, and have begun
to play a major role as cultural ambassadors for the Province.19

Although Garbary had wanted the company to remain in Nova Scotia, there
was demand for them to perform nationally. Perhaps as a consequence, for
the first time directors were hired for specific productions and noncommissioned
plays such as James Reaney's Names and Nicknames20 were produced,
re-establishing the custom of the early seasons. Felix Mirbt, a well known
master of puppet theatre, was one of the directors brought in. He directed
The Navigator, a script by Garbary; this production, in which
Garbary appeared for the first time on stage with the company to act as
a narrator, was revived the next season.

Despite the diversity of the company's policy, the lack of a supporting
artistic community, and the absence of a single dramatic source, the Mermaid's
international reputation continued to grow. The MicMac legend material
was very much in demand; in 1980, The Trickster a script from 1976
by Garbary, was invited to the World Puppet Festival in Washington, D.C.
At home in Wolfville, directors were brought in, and scripts were drawn
from a variety of sources, again following the custom of early seasons.
The Navigator was restaged by Mirbt and toured Ontario. At least
one critic's response indicated a growing sophistication in the Mermaid's
craft:

For the first few minutes, the set-up seemed awkward and hardly
the stuff of theatre for adults, But this is a show that plays with creating
theatrical illusions and destroying them, as in the surprising intermission
call [actress called 'cut' and 'intermission'], often to great effect.
Along the way, it showed that puppets on the stage don't necessarily have
to be just for children, something that Mirbt has been proving consistently
with his acclaimed productions, such as his puppet adaptations of Büchner's
Woyzeck and Strindberg's The Dream Play.21

Mirbt suggested a new approach based on skillful theatrical details and
not myth, and Patrick Walsh's Louisbourg was originally directed
by another guest director, Frank Canino, in this year. Garbary took over
direction of theopening performances; she also wrote and directed
The Stolen Child, based on a MicMac legend. It was The Trickster,
however, that was performed at the UNIMA World Puppet festival while
at home Louisbourg and Growing Up In Louisbourg, directed
by an actor from the Louisbourg cast, Graham Whitehead, received warm critical
response, Tom Miller, unhappy with the Mermaid's diverse policies, left
the company.

In 1981, Stolen Child, Louisbourg and Growing up in Louisbourg
were remounted. The only new production, Running the Red Lights,
a play about drug abuse and sexual permissiveness, received adverse
criticism and for the first time for a Mermaid show, a strongly negative
response from the high schools for which it was designed. Described by
the press as an 'outspoken play,'22Running the
Red Lights was created to move the company in a new direction:

Now its founder and artistic director, Evelyn Garbary - a theatrical
pioneer by any measure - wants a firmer base for Mermaid's appeal to young
people and their parents, and believes she has found it in a group of young
writers she is recruiting. The approach is almost certain to be controversial
... 'History plays for children under twelve,' she believes, 'might be
the answer to the challenge of young people's theatre for the next dozen
years but students in the latter teens want something touching their own
lives more directly.'23

A few months after this statement, after Running the Red Lights had
met opposition from school boards and parents, Garbary resigned.24
Tom Miller was brought back as interim artistic director. During the fall
of this year, the company, while searching for a new artistic director,
launched a National Playwrighting contest and prepared the next season:
Miller directed The Cow Show, a co-production with Rag and Bone
Theatre Project, Ottawa, and Fred Thury directed his own adaptation, Anna's
Pet.

In February 1982, a previous company actor and interim administrator,
Graham Whitehead, was appointed artistic director. Whitehead, who had received
his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in 1972, had been an Assistant
Professor at Dalhousie University. Upon leaving Dalhousie, he served as
Drama Consultant to the Department of Education, Government of Nova Scotia.
He brought to the company his own extensive acting and directing experience
as well as a background in education and dramaturgy. Whitehead quickly
released a statement:

Without abandoning the qualities that have made Mermaid a vibrant
theatre over the past decade,' he said, 'we must find new styles and philosophies
that will give the company the impetus to develop over the next ten years.25

A report on the fiscal year to July announced that the company had completed
120 performances for audiences totalling 29,000. Whitehead's first production
as artistic director, Shadow Valley, was staged at this time.

In 1983, Whitehead's aims for the theatre were clearly indicated by
his productions of Sam Slick the Clockmaker, script and lyrics by
Paul Lecloux, and Just So Stories, adapted by Whitehead himself.
Both used music, multiple but simple sets, imaginative properties and doubling.
Touring also increased this year. Christopher Heide, a published playwright26
who had worked with Mulgrave Road Co-op Theatre, was appointed for the
next year as Playwright-in-Residence. In 1984, Mermaid continued to grow.
In January, a press release stated that Mermaid had

three productions simultaneously on the road this winter (one
in Ontario, two in Nova Scotia), [so] that the year's total production
(eight) is higher than any time in its twelve year history.27

Fall of 1984 found Mermaid in Mexico, performing the often revived and
popular Anna's Pet. They returned to Nova Scotia to open a new production,
Peter and the Wolf adapted and directed by Whitehead, designed by
Tom Miller and with a synthesizer score by Steven Naylor. Clearly, a new
artistic community was forming. Vivian Frow, who designed the costumes
for this show, also designed Shadow Valley, and Naylor had done
the score for the same play.

Music had become increasingly important to Mermaid productions. Whitehead
wanted to create 'multi-media' presentations,28 and to
emphasize 'the wonder, magic, dream'29 of theatre for
his audiences. The company's major shift, he has suggested, was towards
a constant striving for international excellence in all levels of production30
The Peter and the Wolf (story was retold by the Company in a fresh,
imaginative and exciting fashion. Using a motorized Wolf with a string
of flashing lights for eyes, and a jungle gym as the forest, Mermaid's
Peter, with music based on the original score, introduced young
audiences to the classical tale and music in a familiar setting.

In the spring of 1985, a new production, Jack and the Beanstalk,
began a Nova Scotia tour. At the same time, Anna's Pet and the
Just So Stories travelled to various parts of Canada, ending at
the Smithsonian, in Washington. Jack and the Beanstalk, another
retelling of a familiar story but in a distinctly indigenous form using
Acadian music, was thus rooted in Nova Scotia. Like Peter and the Wolf
puppets and actors were used conjointly; in the earlier play, for example,
when the action called for something that the puppet, a bird or a duck,
could not do, the manipulator set down the puppet and physically assumed
the role. Young audiences had no difficulty with this complex level of
theatricality.31

Heide's play, I Ain't Dead Yet,32 was produced
in the fall of 1985. it dealt with the ideas of old age and senility from
varying perspectives of the aged, the mature and the teen. Using a dream
figure, the playwright explored the character of Margaret, a seventy-three
year old grandmother. Through dialogue and song, a young Margaret reminded
the old woman of her past and her frustrated dreams. Set in parallel with
this character was Katie, Margaret's sixteen-year old granddaughter. The
play received glowing reviews:

Although conceived as a play for high school students, it is
a work which fully engages the interest and intellect of an adult audience.33

Heide acknowledged that this play directly grew out of his residency at
Mermaid:

At least two and a half years ago, he [Whitehead) asked me
to think about it, and finally we got down to the script a year ago. But
it's very much his concept and he's acted as dramaturge the whole way and
has a lot to do with the creation of the play.34

Whitehead, responsible for the multi-media productions of Just So Stories
and Peter and the Wolf , continued to shape the company, encouraging
experimentation in a new direction.

In November of 1985, Peter and the Wolf opened a cross- Canada
tour in Newfoundland. In the next year, this production was performed in
Ontario, Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Also in 1986, Just So Stories
was on the road, produced in Long Island and Philadelphia.35
New plays were workshopped and developed. The Bluebird, adapted
and directed by Whitehead, toured Nova Scotia in April and May while Beo
and the Boys, adapted from 'Beowolf' by Whitehead, was workshopped.36
Fall 1986 saw Just So Stories on tour again; this time the play
was performed in the Yukon, at Expo '86 and through Western Canada.37
Also at Expo was Flights of Fancy, conceived by Whitehead and Miller,
and described as 'a space-age adventure story about early scientific experiments.'38
This production toured Alberta and Ontario. The season of 1987 confirmed
the basic pattern established since Whitehead became artistic director
in 1982. A new play by Christopher Heide based on his experiences of returning
as a full-time student to high school was developed around a musical framework.
Other new scripts were developed from non-native sources and the company
performed extensively at home in rural Nova Scotia, across Canada and in
parts of the United States.

From the company's formation in 1971, Merinaid Theatre has grown and
matured. it is now a fully professional company engaged in local, national
and international touring. one director is in command of a professional
artistic community of designers, actors, writers and musicians. What made
the company unique in the mid seventies, the retelling of legend with mask
and puppets, has been redefined. Movement away from the MicMac legends
has resulted in the discovery of new legends and myths. Kipling's stories,
Prokofiev, and traditional fairytales are being recreated by this children's
company into sophisticated, highly theatrical plays suitable for audiences
of any age. Heide's second play suggests another direction Mermaid is moving
in. While Heide first worked with Mermaid on a Canada Council grant, the
company maintains their interest in this playwright; his plays continue
to be workshopped. He seems to have joined the community of artists who
under the leadership of Whitehead and Miller contribute a rich forum for
the development of theatre for young audiences and a potentially fertile
atmosphere for the nurturing and growth of new Canadian plays.

13 Mermaid Theatre by John Knight, published by N.S. Communications
and Information Centre, July 13 1976 Copy of paper held by Acadia University
Library Archives, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
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14 Copy of script held by Acadia University Library Archives, Wolfville,
Nova Scotia
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